Silica polymer bonding of stressed silica grains: An early growth of intergranular tensile strength
Abstract
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Laboratory tests on microscale are reported
in which millimeter-sized amorphous silica cubes were kept highly compressed in a
liquid environment of de-ionized water solutions with different silica ion concentrations
for up to four weeks. Such an arrangement simulates an early evolution of bonds between
two sand grains stressed in situ. In-house designed Grain Indenter-Puller apparatus
allowed measuring strength of such contacts after 3-4 weeks. Observations reported
for the first time confirm a long-existing hypothesis that a stressed contact with
microcracks generates silica polymers, forming a bonding structure between the grains
on a timescale in the order of a few weeks. Such structure exhibits intergranular
tensile force at failure of 1-1.5 mN when aged in solutions containing silica ion
concentrations of 200-to 500-ppm. The magnitude of such intergranular force is 2-3
times greater than that of water capillary force between the same grains.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/10760Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1016/j.gete.2015.02.002Publication Info
(2015). Silica polymer bonding of stressed silica grains: An early growth of intergranular
tensile strength. Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment, 1. pp. 48-59. 10.1016/j.gete.2015.02.002. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/10760.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Tomasz Hueckel
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Tomasz Hueckel received his master's degree in civil engineering from the University
of Technology in Gdansk, Poland, in 1968, his Ph.D. in applied mechanics from the
Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, in 1974, and the D.Sc. in physical sciences
from the University of Grenoble, France, in 1985. He started his research career at
the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, then taught at the University of Rome and
the University of Technology in Milan before joining ISMES, a research institute
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